


blank and pitiless as the sun

by landfill_lady, oldbooksandnutella



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Canon Jewish Character, Canon Queer Character, Canon Rromani Character, Charles is dead, Erik POV, Multi, Or Is he?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 07:57:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7039621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/landfill_lady/pseuds/landfill_lady, https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldbooksandnutella/pseuds/oldbooksandnutella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apocalypse wins the battle in Cairo, and the world is reborn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> short prologue chapter. the first real chapter will upload this sunday (6/5), at noon.
> 
> please leave kudos or comments if you enjoyed! they'll give me some gauge of how interested people are in this au, and probably affect the amount/date of uploads. super excited to start on my first longfic wip in a while!

Erik knows almost before anyone emerges from the pyramid. He can feel it in his bones. As cliché as it sounds, a bone-deep chill judders through him, and he _knows_ Charles is gone.

The armored body which appears from the gaping doorway moments later - still slate-gray and armored, but of slighter build than before - is only visual confirmation of a fact already screaming through every fibre of Erik's being. For all his complacency, all his unceasing foolhardy belief, Charles was the first friend Erik has had since his childhood. Now he is dead.

The only truly surprising part of the scene is the swirling column of dust that supports Apocalypse's reclining body. The element of showmanship is not unusual for the self-appointed deity; the posture, however, is.  En Sabah Nur is reluctant to relax in the best of times; now, surrounded by enemies, Erik cannot fathom it. Looking down at the sprawling posture, he's reminded bizarrely of his childhood Pesach seders. _Halaila hazeh, halaila_ _hazeh, kulanu m'subin?_   

It hits him suddenly: Apocalypse is only reclining because he cannot stand. He has claimed Charles' body, and with it, Charles' weaknesses. For the first time in eons, his body is less than a perfect machine. 

His master looks up sharply at him, and Erik has the disconcerting intuition that he can make out every minutia of Erik's expression, even from so far below.

 _"Keep building."_ The words appear in Erik's head like Charles' have so many times, but it's a sick parody of his old friend's voice: warped, harsh, scraping. Within his bubble of protective metal, Erik winces. 

Below him, Mystique has fallen to the ground. Her mouth hangs open in a silent scream; the smear of pink and white is ugly against her sapphire skin. The young man next to her - cocky, spindly and silver; Erik remembers him vaguely from the shitshow in Washington - surveys her mutely for a moment before throwing himself at Apocalypse in a blur of motion. Apocalypse tolerates his foolish onslaught for a minute, the way a mortal man might tolerate a buzzing mosquito, before crushing him swiftly and decisively. The boy falls to the ground, both legs twisted at excruciating, impossible angles.

From the wreckage around them, Charles' other strays, his little "X-Men", begin to emerge. Their faces are horrified. Erik recognizes Hank Mccoy and a slim, gun-toting brunette who must be Moira Mactaggart - the rest are new to him. They move sluggishly, as though underwater. Although they came prepared for battle,  there has been no fight, and there will not be one. All is over already, even though none of them expected it to end like this.

One of the figures, a young boy, makes as if to whip off his glasses, but Apocalypse presses one slate hand to his temple and the boy crumples to the ground, inanimate. A red-headed girl rushes to his unconscious (dead?) body, but the rest of them are stock-still, stupefied with loss.

This is not how things should have ended. Erik does not know what to do.

He keeps building.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik wakes to the sound of screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a couple hours late, here is the first "real" chapter! sorry for the delay, today kicked my ass ':S  
> it's quite a short one, objectively speaking, but don't worry, i'll be uploading at least one more every week! super excited to see where this story goes :D

Erik wakes to the sound of screaming.

It's a Thursday, he thinks - yes, it has been three days after the battle, and two more since Apocalypse found him in Poland, so it must be. Strange how time loses its meaning after the end of the world as one knows it.

He sits up off his bed, grimacing immediately at the various pains and aches of his body.

He has done his best with the quarters in the pyramid, but metal is, after all, only metal. Perhaps, he thinks with faint amusement, Apocalypse will locate a mutant whose power is to create feather beds. They could certainly use it.

The screaming stops for a long moment, then continues, more ragged than before. Erik washes his face, draws himself a cup of water from the basin next to his bed, and pulls on what remains of his clothing - his helmet has remained on through the night, just like the old days - before following the sound out of his room and down the hall to the metal cage where Mystique is imprisoned.

Erik sees his old companion before she sees him. Her eyes are wild in her sapphire face, and her fingers are torn and bloody where she's clawed at the bars of her cage. Her voice is going hoarse from screaming. From the far wall, Storm is watching her, her brilliant eyes troubled. She nods to Erik when she sees him, and Mystique's head follows the movement to where Erik stands.

She stops screaming when she sees him to hiss hatefully. Her skin ripples, and seconds later, he's standing face-to-face with a perfect copy of Charles Xavier. It bares its teeth at Erik.

"Erik," Raven says in Charles' voice. It is a perfect approximation, apart from the hoarseness and the sheer, raw hatred Raven can't disguise, so alien to Charles' sweet voice and cherubic features.  Erik can feel the sorrow rising steadily in his gut. He pushes it down ruthlessly. 

"You can't keep on like this forever, Mystique," he says instead. Charles' perfect lips curl.

"Go to hell," he says with Raven's voice. "You killed my brother."

Unable to meet the Charles-copy's gaze any longer, Erik looks over to Storm again.

"We should go," he says, more harshly than he'd intended. "No sense in keeping him waiting."

Storm's mouth purses, and the room fills with the scent of lightning. "You forget yourself," she says lowly, pushing herself from her perch on the wall. "What, you think you can tell me what to do, _faranji_? Don't ever try to order me around, or I'll remind you what lightning does to metal."

Erik spreads his hands in apology, and they set off side-by-side for the King's Chamber. Before they leave the room, Erik sets his glass of water on the floor just outside of Mystique's cage. She will be glad of it in a couple of hours, if she keeps on with her screaming.

Erik studies Storm from the corner of his eye as they stride down the long corridor together. She is young - sixteen or eighteen, if he had to guess - but she has the furrowed brow and tired eyes of a much older woman. Responsibility is weighing on her, more now than ever.

Ever since the destruction of Cairo three days ago, the only reliable source of fresh water has been the sky. Storm is extraordinarily powerful, even more so with Apocalypse's gifts, but slaking the thirst of an entire capitol is not a task for one mutant.

Erik has been feeling the weight of his own workload. More and more mutants are arriving in Cairo every day to join Apocalypse's new society, but there are few to no homes for them in the wake of the battle. He, the razer of cities, has been tasked with building accommodations for them. He spends his days floating from end to end of the city, equipped acutely with the knowledge that, if he misplaces one beam, an entire building might topple. Erik may be a mutant, but he is not an architect: every building he erects is sheer guesswork.

Still, there must be something he can do to help with the water situation.

Perhaps he could locate an architect or a scientist . Hank might be able to help - spirit broken by Charles' defeat, Beast has retreated to the outskirts of the city, accompanied by Summers, MacTaggart, and the red-headed girl. Erik suspects that direct physical confrontation wouldn't phase Hank much, but a well-timed threat to one of the others might convince McCoy to lend his assistance. If he showed Erik how to redesign the reservoirs-

"What are you thinking about, old man?" Storm asks him, interrupting his thoughts. Her bad mood seems to have passed, and she studies him in a way that reminds him of the children back in Poland - bright, playful, curious.  _What are you hiding from us?_

"Nothing," he lies, badly.

Through that uncanny perception some teenagers have, she seems to guess the exact train of Erik's thought, and her eyes sharpen again.  

"Did I say I needed help?" she asks. 

Erik shakes his head, pretending he has no idea what she's talking about. Inside, he thinks, _we both do._  

Just as Storm is about to retort, they come to the end of the corridor and enter the King's Chamber.

Ever one for spectacle, Apocalypse has erected himself a massive golden throne in the dead center of the pyramid, where he reclines to hear the entreaties of the masses. The duty of his Horsemen is to remain by his side until the audiences are finished for the day - less for actual protection, Erik suspects, than for the theatre of it.

Psylocke and Angel are already standing sentry at the right and left of the throne, gazes roving cool and disinterested over the swarming mass of people in front of them, constrained into a single-file line by unforgiving metal walls of Erik's own design.

Over the past three days, Erik has seen brutal things happen in the line. On the first day, before the walls, an old man had been pushed down and crushed to death beneath the feet of the others. No one had noticed until the line had been cleared for the day."He was not strong," Apocalypse had said dismissively, using a tendril of sand to pluck at one of the man's twisted limbs. Immediately, Erik's mind had cleared. A human, of course. He'd deserved what he got.

But then, as Psylocke dragged the body away, he'd seen a flash of scales beneath the man's collar. Erik's gut still churns uneasily thinking about it.

Today, the first in line is a tall brunette woman in a blue dress. Her eyes are milky and unseeing, but she carries no cane. Every time one of her rivals in line makes a lunge at her, she avoids them cleanly, before turning and dispatching them with a neat punch or a roundhouse kick. Erik wonders, distantly, what her mutation is. Once Erik and Storm are both stationed at his sides, Apocalypse motions her forward with one slate palm, and the woman steps forward, bowing her head slightly to him.

"What is your name?" he rumbles at her.

"Irene Adler," the woman says clearly. Her voice echoes off the walls of the chamber, hardly shaking - she is either very brave, or very foolhardy. "I am called Destiny."

"And what is it you want, my child?" Apocalypse asks gently. This question, like that of the name, is purely for the audience's benefit - through Charles' gift, Apocalypse already knows exactly what Irene wants, and Erik can see from the cast of his face that he is prepared to grant it.

The woman draws herself up tighter. "I want custody of the woman. The blue one -- _Mystique_." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and introducing ...destiny! most characters in this fic will be from the movieverse, but you can expect a couple other comics-only mutants popping up over the course of the story.
> 
> if you have any comments/suggestions, or any feedback on how i am portraying particular characters (i am fem, queer, and religiously/ethnically jewish, but not visually impaired, physically impaired, rroma, or of color, so i'd really appreciate insights on how i can portray specific characters more sensitively) you can find me in the comments section, or as oldbooksandnutella on tumblr.
> 
> (also, i am t e r r i b l e at german and egyptian arabic. any help would be much appreciated)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I have leverage back in Cairo, you know." Erik says, feeling stupid. "I could help you."
> 
> Hank's lip raises in an unconscious snarl. "Like you 'helped' Charles? No thanks."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jsyk, my facecast for irene is [amanda stafford](https://antm411.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/869596390_l.gif?w=480).
> 
> sorry for the late update, and the lack of one last week. this chapter's quite a bit longer than the last two, so hopefully that'll make up for the gap at least a bit.  
> (also, since i was in a hurry to put it up, this chapter is going up basically unedited. i'll go back over it in a couple days and edit further; for now, sorry for any grammar or tone awkwardness.)

 Erik's breath catches in his throat as Apocalypse nods regally. Surely he can't mean to -

"Granted," the mutant rumbles before Erik can finish his thought. His eyes are disturbingly bright as he regards Destiny, and although the woman has no way of seeing them, she shivers anyways. "Take a firm hand with her, Destiny. She is wily."

The woman nods curtly. "I will be sure to, my lord." 

Apocalypse smiles, a shock of white on gray. "Then she is yours."

Numbly, Erik feels his skin ripple into gooseflesh as a thin trail of sand grains begin to climb up his back. Apocalypse watches him from the corner of his eye as they reach the base of his skull, and his helmet moves jarringly against his head. The meaning of the gesture is clear; he wants Erik to remove his helmet. The helmet jiggles again, harder this time, and another tendril of sand has begun to snake towards it. Erik gets the hint: he will remove his helmet, now, or Apocalypse will do it for him. Preferring to keep what agency he has, he levitates the helmet off his head, and Apocalypse crashes into his mind like a tidal wave.

_Don't fear too much for your traitorous blue friend, my child._ The words appear in his head the same as before - jarring, throbbing, and loud beyond belief. Erik bites his cheek against the pain, and tries to focus on Apocalypse's words.  _Miss Adler will take good care of her. They were lovers once, you know; I daresay Mystique will enjoy her confinement with Destiny much more than her time in that excellent cage of yours._

It doesn't cross Erik's mind to disbelieve the titan. Mystique had never told him that she had- those inclinations, but it benefits Apocalypse little to lie to him. But then why release Mystique into Adler's custody, if not for punishment? Isn't that the point of the cage - to punish, to control and humiliate?

The answer comes to him in a flash just before Apocalypse responds.

_Exactly,_ his voice rumbles in Erik's head, pleased at his insight. _Put little stock in appearances, Erik. Destiny has no love for me, nor for our society here. Without the continued exercise of your friend's excellent power, she could grow to be quite a problem for us, as could Mystique. They are both radicals to the core, and n_ _either has much care for their own life. But now that they have each other, they can be... controlled._  

The fear in Erik's chest eases abruptly. If Apocalypse means to use Raven's safety to blackmail Adler, she is safe, at least as long as Irene cooperates with Apocalypse's agenda. 

_Quite so._ The humor in the voice is palpable. 

In his throne, Apocalypse waves a hand lazily in Erik's direction, and a fresh gust of sand blows the helmet back onto his head. The silence is blissful.

"Magneto?" Apocalypse rumbles, out loud this time.

It takes a moment for Erik to understand what he's been requested to do.

As the eyes of the sycophantic court watch curiously, he closes his eyes, and wills the metal of Mystique's cage to levitate down the twisting hallways of the pyramid and into the chamber.

Once it's in the center of the room, he makes a sharp, one-handed motion and it drops to the floor with a loud, hollow clang.

 "Erik," Mystique spits, staring at him hatefully through the bars. "What the _fuck_ -"

Her voice trails off when she sees Destiny.

"Irene," she says finally, voice husky. Her eyes are very wide.

Adler inclines her head regally in the direction of Mystique's voice. 

"Mystique," she says coolly, and Raven's eyes widen further.

" _What_ _the_   _fuck-_ "

"I see you and Miss Adler are already acquainted," Apocalypse interrupts her, voice booming. Raven's gaze snaps to him, and the sheer, unbridled hatred that fills her face gives Erik chills. Apocalypse does not seem fazed.

"The remainder of your punishment will take place in her care, as long as neither of you disobeys me. I believe the two of you will be a good fit." Apocalypse's eyes do not flinch from Raven's. "Needless to say, if I have misplaced my faith in either of you, I shall be... most displeased." 

Once the speech is concluded,he waves his hand once, and two long arms of sand and debris tear Erik's sturdy cage to pieces in a matter of seconds.

"Leave us now, Miss Adler, before I repent of my charity."

Adler nods regally, but her face is completely drained of blood. She and Mystique lead each other out of the King's Chamber on shaky legs.

The rest of the day's petitions and pledges of loyalty pass in a blur for Erik.

After he is released from his duties for the day, Erik walks Cairo's clamoring streets until he finds a food stand with the welcome כשר sign painted timidly on one aged wood plank. A stout pink-skinned woman bustles around behind the counter, trading quips with customers as she adds seasoning to several simmering dishes. When she recognizes Erik as one of Apocalypse's lieutenants, she hands him a heaping plate of moussaka free of charge. He eats it ravenously as he contemplates what to do with the remainder of his evening.

Suddenly, he's overcome by a burning desire to visit Hank McCoy, and see how the X-Men are holding up without Charles to guide them.

What remains of Charles' ill-fated rescue team have retreated to the Helnan Auberge in Faiyum, a long, squat building perched on the banks of Lake Karoun.

The hotel is about eighteen hours' walk from Cairo by foot, at least according to Erik's informant, a scruffy street vendor who makes his trade in maps and dubious information. Dangling from Angel's arms, Erik makes the journey in less than an hour.

"I'll go in alone," he says abruptly once Angel has let him down none-too-gently on the Auberge's front lawn.

Angel shrugs carelessly, lighting up a cigarette pulled from a pocket in his flight suit. "Whatever you say, man."

Erik watches as he spirals up into the sky and alights on the hotel's roof before beginning the trek over to the hotel's impressive double doors.

By the time he gets there, Hank McCoy is standing in the doorway, arms folded, like a cross between a Muppet and a barricade.

Hank has reverted to his blue, beastlike form, and he's naked but for a ragged pair of flight pants. His arms are crossed imposingly over his chest.

"Erik," he says coolly once they're within hearing distance. "What are you doing here?"

"Beast," Erik greets him, extending a hand. Hank ignores it.

"That's not my name," he says. They stand there for a moment longer, regarding each other impassively, before Hank spins abruptly on an ankle and walks back into the building. Erik follows him uncertainly inside to a large foyer where Hank sinks down on an overstuffed sofa, sighing expansively.

After a moment of indecision, Erik seats himself in an armchair opposite the sofa.

"How are the children?" he asks awkwardly.

Hank spits on the ground. "Alive," he says, "for the most part. Which is more than I can say of my two best friends, thanks to you."

"Do you need anything?"

"What the fuck does it matter to you?"

"I have leverage back in Cairo, you know." Erik says, feeling stupid. "I could help you."

Hank's lip raises in an unconscious snarl. "Like you 'helped' Charles? No thanks."

"You've seen Apocalypse's power. What happened would have happened with or without me."

"Keep telling yourself that."

Erik is saved from having to respond by the redheaded girl from the battle, who darts into the room from one of the many doors leading off it.

Up close, she's younger than he'd thought - sixteen or seventeen, at most. The week has not been kind to her. There are deep circles under her eyes, and her lips are bitten raw.

"Professor," she says, sparing little more than a cursory glance for Erik. "It's Quicksilver."

Hank curses under his breath. "I'll be there in a second."

The girl nods once at him, before turning and disappearing back through the door. 

Hank takes a moment to compose himself before following her, eyes closed and nostrils flared.

"Who was that?" Erik asks, curious.

Hank's furry brow creases with anger, and then with confusion, as though it's taking him some time to remember.

"That's Jean, he says finally. "Low-level telekinetic, I think. Charles was fond of her."

Without any more explanation, he heaves himself up off the sofa and sets off after the girl at a trot. Erik follows him down a hallway to a large guest room where the silver-haired boy lies on the bed, barely conscious and moaning with pain.

His jeans have been cut away at the thigh, and both legs are bound in rough splints, but they don't appear to be setting correctly, and the skin is red and irritated.

A skinny, demon-like mutant hovers around the bed, twisting his navy hands together as he mutters indistinct prayers. Every so often, he disappears with a sharp  _CRACK_ and reappears on the other side of the room, apparently without even realizing he's doing so.

"What's wrong with him?" Erik asks, feeling ill.

Hank's face is grim. "A bone infection, I think. It set in two days ago. I've been treating him as best I can, but I'm not actually a medical doctor, so I know fuck-all about what I'm doing."

"Will he live?"

Hank shrugs, his face lined with worry and exhaustion. "At this point, who knows. Now unless you've obtained a medical degree sometime in the past ten years, will you please fucking _leave me alone?_ "

Erik shows himself out. 

After a minute or so, Angel joins him on the lawn in a flutter of metallic feathers.

"Good trip?" 

"Not exactly," Erik says. 

Angel smirks at him. "Aw, poor little Magnet Man, the other muties don't like him any more." Erik ignores the jibe.

Angel's expression sours a bit when he fails to get a rise out of Erik, but he pastes over it quickly with a bright grin, extending his arms as if for an embrace. "Shall we?"

Erik nods, and the cold winds of the troposphere rip away any lingering guilty thoughts. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for updates on this fic, you can check [the _blank and pitiless_ tag](http://oldbooksandnutella.tumblr.com/tagged/blank-and-pitiless) on my blog  
>  there's not much there right now, but in the future you can expect meta, bad manips/fanart, and much more!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're dead," Erik says numbly. There's a lump in his throat.
> 
> Charles smiles wanly at him from across the room.
> 
> "So it would seem, more or less," he says, voice jerky. "Unfortunately, there seems to be rather more _more and less_ involved in this particular circumstance than normal."
> 
> (see end of chapter for trigger warnings)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! sorry i haven't been updating this fic as often as i said i was going to. july was a bit... weird, to say the least.  
> but now that i've gotten used to the changes a bit, i should be able to have something like a regular schedule again. check my blog for updates, but i'll probably try to have a chapter up every week.

When they get back to Cairo, Angel drops Erik unceremoniously at the edge of an alley and shoots off again, whooping and hollering into the night. Erik looks around warily - this is a different corner of the city than the one he's familiar with, one much farther from the spectacle of Apocalypse's abode. He's about thirty minutes' walk from the pyramid, he estimates, feeling the pull of the huge metal structure in his gut.

Erik could levitate himself there in half the time, of course, but since he still feels faintly airsick from Angel's turbulent chauffeuring, he elects to walk.

As Erik sets off towards the pyramid, he studies the flickering shadow at his feet. The sun has entirely set now, and most of this neighborhood's streetlights have been stripped of metal - Erik's doing - so the street's only source of illumination is three or four trash bins set alight by enterprising locals. The light is mediocre at best, and the smell is atrocious.

Humans and mutants prowl the sidewalk around him, and Erik takes care to keep one eye out even as he studies his silhouette. Those who gather here are not the idealists and opportunists of Apocalypse's court - these are what Shaw would have called "the dregs of society," too careworn to be taken in starry-eyed by the dream of a new world.

One particular figure catches Erik's attention - a tall, fair-haired mutant with large pink eyes and a sharp, gap-toothed smile. He's selling pot out of his coat - doing a pretty brisk business of it, too. The kid notices Erik's gaze, and aims a smile his way.

"You looking to score?" he asks, shambling over to Erik's side. "It'll cost you."

"No thank you," Erik says tersely.

The pusher is still worming his way into Erik's personal space. "You sure? This is the good shit, man. Promise."

Erik can feel a tic in his jaw. He clenches his fist, and the boy's necklace tightens around his neck, taut enough to choke.

The kid is wheezing now; clawing at his neck. He fumbles a bag out of his jacket and tosses it at Erik's feet, eyes desperate.

"You can"  _-_ _wheeze -_ "have it, okay? Jesus Christ. I'm just trying to make an honest buck here."

 "You disgust me," Erik grits out, releasing his hold on the metal. The kid scurries away, eyes wide and terrified.

"You're fucking crazy, man," he lobs like a parting shot over his shoulder, disappearing into the night.

 Displays like these turn Erik's stomach: pushers who prey on the weak, the vulnerable. There are, as yet, no provisional sets of laws for En Sabah Nur's new mutant nation - the monarch has been busy with other tasks. In the interim, some unsavory characters have... taken advantage. The kid's lucky he's a mutant; otherwise, Erik would have slit his fool throat.

" _Miststück_ ," Erik mutters halfheartedly under his breath, kicking at the bag with one booted foot. The shit is probably laced with five kinds of cheap addictive compounds. At the same time, Erik's shoulders have never felt more weighed down. He picks the Ziplock up, shifts it around in his hand a little, and stows it furtively in one jacket pocket. Just until he decides what to do, of course.

***

 Storm is waiting by the door of Erik's chambers, popping bubblegum as she leans nonchalantly against the wall. The teenager takes one look from Erik's shifty expression to the hand cupped protectively over his pocket, and bursts into laughter. Erik grimaces.

" _Yalla",_ she says, beckoning him towards the hallway to her chambers. "I'll lend you some cigarette skins."

***

 When Storm hands him the first joint of the night, Erik takes a moment to inhale deeply and regret his life choices. He hasn't smoked weed in - Jesus, it must be sixteen years by now.

Even assuming this stuff _isn't_ laced, it's going to hit him like a ton of bricks. Storm, on the other hand, seems like she smokes every other day. And Erik could never allow himself to be out-smoked by a seventeen-year-old.

He shakes his jitters off quickly once Storm floats him the joint and a beat-up silver lighter on a careless curl of wind. He has a couple of false starts with the lighter, and coughs uncontrollably after his first inhale, but after a couple of fits and starts, settles quickly into the rhythm of puffing and passing. 

After the first two roaches, time passes more quickly. Erik loses track of the conversation and refinds it a dozen times, and spends the next two hours in a pleasant fuzzy haze.

He resurfaces at two a.m. to find that he's been staring at his left hand for the past twenty minutes and Storm is hovering over him, expression torn between amusement and concern.

"You should sleep," she says, prodding at Erik's sprawling legs with one booted foot. 

"'Mnot tired." As soon as the words pass Erik's lips, he realizes that he's wrong- he can barely keep his eyes open, and the sentence comes out in an almost incoherent blur. Above him, the girl smiles an "I-told-you-so" sort of smile.

"You can crash here," she says, gesturing towards the majestic metal slab in the center of the room. Unlike Erik's, there's a touch of personality to this one, added by a large patterned scarf draped over the slab as a makeshift blanket.

"No, I couldn't," Erik says politely, waving a hand. "It's yours."

Storm cocks an eyebrow, and Erik watches her pupils go white as a miniature whirlwind levitates her five feet off the ground. "Trust me, Lensherr, the bed is more of a formality."

"All right," Erik says, heaving out a sigh as he levitates himself up from the floor and onto the bed. Standing is a bit too much effort right now. " _Danke, gör._ "

One corner of Storm's mouth quirks up in amusement. " _All'afw, al'ahmaq al'almania"_ she says, floating back up to her perch near the ceiling. "Sleep well."

Erik tosses and turns on the metal bed for eons, bemoaning the sad lack of mattress-manipulating mutants in Cairo. The helmet presses into his skull uncomfortably any way he lies, and before Erik can remember its necessity, he's levitated it off his head and onto the floor, and his mind is once again vulnerable.

He sucks in a deep breath, feeling abruptly naked, and reminds himself adamantly that his fear is unwarranted.

Apocalypse can read Erik's mind, but he will overlook Erik's flaws and the creeping seed of unfounded doubt in his chest. Erik believes that. He  _has_ to believe that.

Erik drifts out of consciousness on that nebulous hope, fingers caressing the healing scabs on the back of his neck.

 ***

His dreams are... muddled.

They start with the image that's been haunting Erik for the past week: sweet Nina and Alicja, both fish-eyed and still in front of Erik. He tries to clutch them to his chest, but their bodies are impossibly heavy and Erik's fingers slip off as body becomes feather-light and he is pulled above the forest to float above it as the dirty fucking humans scatter to the wind.

And then he's no longer flying over the trees of Poland - he's soaring over the roofs of Cairo, old brick interspersed with new metal. As Erik watches, the metal roofs begin to crumple and fall in on the buildings beneath them. The sound of screaming fills the streets as Erik's shoulderblades begin to prickle with pain, and he looks above himself to discover that he is no longer in control -   no, Angel is the one flying, gripping Erik's jacket with his ragged nails.

"Nice job, fucker," he says, smiling bitterly down at Erik as he releases the jacket and Erik's stomach is filled with the sickening swoop of vertigo.  

Halfway down, the fall ceases. and Erik finds himself back at Hank's makeshift hideout. The building is bustling with new life; ragged-looking locals and foreigners alike have gravitated to the Auberge. Many of them human, Erik suspects, feeling an unpleasant twinge in his stomach. They cluster on the hotel grounds, completing various meaningless little tasks as Erik watches them, until his vision is cut off by a strange red flash.

After that, there's a brief, unsettling flash of Apocalypse in his throne, petting a ragged parakeet with one proprietary hand. Although Apocalypse shows no signs of knowledge of Erik's presence, the parakeet turns to stare.  _"Erik,"_ it says to him with Charles' voice, pleading. 

Then the room ripples, and suddenly Erik's back in the Helnan Auberge, watching Hank fuss over the silver-haired boy's bedside. The company is mostly the same - wan red-haired girl, skinny blue teleporter, and a brunet in a strange goggle-like contraption Erik vaguely recognizes from the battle - but there's one new onlooker, an olive-skinned girl in a red leather jacket. 

The girl - no, young woman; she's twenty-five at least, Erik guesses - is sitting on the ground, keeping watch over the room's activity.

As Erik watches, her eyes morph from inquisitive brown to a swirling red. 

"You shouldn't be here," she says, head tilting up to stare accusatorily at Erik.

"Is he all right?" he asks, looking down at the boy's inflamed skin and labored breathing. 

"Like you care." She spits at his feet.

"We're both mutants," he says, uncertain in his need to justify himself. "I feel a certain... kinship."

She barks a laugh. "You have  _no idea._ "

"What is that supposed to mean?"

The woman's lips pull back in a snarl. "Go," she says. "There are others for you to be dreaming of." 

_Charles._  "I don't know how to find him," Erik says desperately, thinking of the bird in Apocalypse's hand.

The woman sighs gustily, and although her eyes remain completely red, Erik gets the unsettling suspicion that she's rolling him.

Then she levers herself off the floor to stand a hand's width from Erik.

"What are you doing?" Erik asks, suspicious.

"Something I shouldn't be," the woman says, putting her hands on the sides of his face. "You're welcome, asshole."

Red lightning explodes behind Erik's eyes. 

When he can see again, he's in a strange, sumptuous bedroom, facing a large canopy bed. Within it sits Charles, knees curled up to his body, staring blankly ahead of him. Next to him, a pile of sheets and pillows rises and falls rhythmically.

"Erik," Charles says, his face lighting up with a smile as his eyes find Erik's.

"You're dead," Erik says numbly. There's a lump in his throat.

Charles smiles wanly at him from across the room. Erik notices faintly that there are little curls of jewelry all over him - wrought-iron flowers and fleurs-de-lis. The skin beneath them is red and raw.

"So it would seem, more or less," he says, voice jerky. "Unfortunately, there seems to be rather more  _more and less_ involved in this particular circumstance than normal."

"You should go," he says tightly, eyes darting to his sleeping bedmate's shallow breathing. "He'll be up any minute now. You need to be gone by then."

_"Wait,"_ Erik tries to say, but he's too late: Charles' hand is pressed firmly to his temple, and sparks explode again behind Erik's eyes.

The rest of the night passes dreamlessly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: brief references to rape/sexual assault.
> 
> also, erik's views on drug dealers are in no way meant to reflect my own!! i just figured he's a very morally black and white person, so it made sense.
> 
> on a different note, [ here](https://cdn-img-2.wanelo.com/p/ee1/fc1/da9/040c6fc2b73f459143e6e5c/x354-q80.jpg)'s wanda's jacket, if anyone was wondering :) i wasn't totally planning on having her appear in _b &p_, but a little while ago i discovered that brian singer confirmed that pietro's younger sister from the cameo in xm:fc is not wanda, which means i can do pretty much whatever i want with her character and it won't be ooc (at least for movieverse, which is pretty ooc compared to the original comics at the best of times, let's be fair).


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik wakes to rain falling on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the lack of updates the last few months (if anyone is even still interested in this shitty fic)! i know i promised to be more consistent, but situations lately have made regular updates a bit more of an impossibility than i'd originally anticipated ':)
> 
> all of that being said, i have a pretty good idea where the plot is heading now, so expect another update (for real this time!) next sunday! updates will be on [my blog](www.oldbooksandnutella.tumblr.com)

Erik wakes to rain falling on his face.

It takes him a second to remember where he is, with the pounding in his temples and the foul taste in his mouth - he has to reach out with his powers to ground himself in the metal around him before he realizes he's in the Pyramid, only a couple of rooms away from his own.

That still doesn't explain the rain, though.

When he finally cracks his eyes open, Storm is looking down on his sprawled body from midair, controlling the miniature raincloud hovering over his head with one careless finger.

"You take too long to wake up, magnet man," she says, smiling at his baleful expression.

Erik groans in response, but can't find it within himself to be too mad at the impish teen - she reminds him too much of Nina in the moment, still so young despite her cavalier use of her powers. Nina, who-

Erik pulls his mind from this train of thought before the walls around them begin to crumple, and focuses on sitting up instead. His head and body ache, but the pain is much easier to deal with than the internal devastation he feels when he thinks of his wife or daughter.

"Wie spät- what time is it?" he asks, rubbing at his temples.

"Eight fifteen," Storm tells him, fiddling idly with her beat-up digital watch as she spins circles in the air.

Erik curses under his breath. No official timetable has been set up yet, but Apocalypse has made it clear that his Horsemen are expected to present themselves in the King's Chamber by eight-thirty local time, after which he will begin to hear audiences at his leisure. Which gives him about ten minutes to make himself presentable before he and Storm start the walk to Apocalypse’s throne room.

Erik pushes himself to his feet, groaning quietly. One of the greater inconveniences of destroying the architecture and appliances of an entire metropolitan area is that there’s no such thing as running water anymore. Although he's taken to removing his bodysuit at night, to reduce the odor, that hadn't been an option with Storm in the room - so, in addition to the tackiness of dried sweat, there’s an unpleasantly ripe smell to the fabric of Erik's suit.

"Would you like to wash up?" Storm asks from above him. Erik cranes his head up to look at her incredulously.

She shrugs, smiling smugly. "I don't know if you missed the memo, but I can control the weather, _faranji_."

Erik gapes. "You would-?"

Storm snaps her fingers, grinning, and a small raincloud forms in the center of the room, pouring water. She snaps her fingers again, and a small bar of soap floats over to rest by Erik's feet on a gust of wind.

 Erik's uniform clings to him with sweat and grime as he unzips it.

 "Aren't you going to turn around?" he asks uncomfortably, eyeing Storm in the air. 

She rolls her eyes theatrically skyward, before using a well-placed gust of wind to rotate herself to face the wall.

"Relax, German. You're a bit old for me."

The shower of rain is cold, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less pleasant. Erik takes a couple breaths to close his eyes and just luxuriate in the feeling of dirt sloughing away from his body.

Getting back into his uniform is just as unpleasant as getting out of it was, but at least he's _clean_ this time.

"You decent?" Storm calls over her shoulder.

"Yes."

The raincloud disperses abruptly, and a warm gust of wind blows over Erik, drying his wet skin.

Storm spins around and drops from the air to land on the floor, doing a showy little somersault on her way down. She grins at him, extending a hand towards the door. "Shall we?"

Storm spends the long walk to Apocalypse's throne room whistling. Erik barely resists rolling his eyes beside her. He understands the buoyant feeling of using your powers to help another mutant, but he strongly suspects that Storm's good mood has less to do with altruism and more to do with the fact that she can do something that he can't.

Storm's body language shifts abruptly as soon as they enter the king's chamber.

" _Forge_ ," she says, voice venomous.

A young man in a red headband, at the head of the line to seek audience, turns to look at her, eyes wide.

"Ororo," he breathes out.

Storm spits on the ground. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

**Author's Note:**

> title from "the second coming," w.b. yeats.
> 
>  
> 
> _Turning and turning in the widening gyre_  
>  _The falcon cannot hear the falconer;_  
>  _Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;_  
>  _Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,_  
>  _The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere_  
>  _The ceremony of innocence is drowned;_  
>  _The best lack all conviction, while the worst_  
>  _Are full of passionate intensity._
> 
>  
> 
> _Surely some revelation is at hand;_  
>  _Surely the Second Coming is at hand._  
>  _The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out_  
>  _When a vast image out of_ Spiritus Mundi  
>  _Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert_  
>  _A shape with lion body and the head of a man,_  
>  _A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,_  
>  _Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it_  
>  _Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds._  
>  _The darkness drops again; but now I know_  
>  _That twenty centuries of stony sleep_  
>  _Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,_  
>  _And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,_  
>  _Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?_


End file.
